Coal miners in England had dug so far beneath the surface of the earth that the shafts and tunnels were in danger of filling up with water. Neither manpower nor the power of horses hitched to pumps could do the tremendous job of keeping the mines dry. Something much stronger was needed. In order to find a new kind of power, inventors began experimenting with steam. The first workable steam engines were made to pump out coal mines more than two hundred years ago.
After a while steam engines began to pull trains over rails and drive ships through the water. They ran threshing machines on farms. Then inventors used their new knowledge about power to make other kinds of engines driven by gasoline or electricity or oil.
At last some of this new machinery began to work its way back into the mines. Power driven elevators carried the men up and down shafts to their work. But the miners still did all the coal digging and loading by hand.
Today many miners use power-driven drills for digging. Mechanical loaders pick up the loose coal and put it into small cars on the tracks in the tunnel. A little electric locomotive pulls the cars away to the elevator which hoists them up above ground.
The most remarkable digger of all is the one you’ll see on the next page. It rolls along a track deep underground until it comes to the place where its operator wants to cut coal. He pushes a control, and the machine’s long neck reaches up. The cutting head, at the end of the neck, starts biting into the coal. The head does its work much faster and easier than men with hand tools ever could.
Outside the mine, machines sort the coal according to size and load it into railroad cars.